32 | New Scientist | 5 March 2022
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Editor’s pick
Fossil fuels seemed like
a good innovation once
19 February, p 27
From Ben Craven, Edinburgh, UK
James Ball discusses some reasons
why people are nervous about new
technologies. Here is another: risk.
Some technologies, such as the
burning of fossil fuels, come
back to bite us. We deploy new
technologies globally and rapidly
with no idea of the long-term
consequences. The internet
brings benefits, but it has worrying
political consequences – the spread
of misinformation, for example.
Governments urge ever more
rapid innovation. But the faster we
do this, the sooner we are going to
hit upon an idea that turns out to
be irretrievably and catastrophically
bad. “It seemed like a good idea
at the time” will be a deeply
inadequate excuse.Coral gardening is a
stopgap worth having
5 February, p 27
From Arthur Dahl,
Geneva, Switzerland
While Catherine Collins rightly
highlights fossil fuel emissions
and overfishing as the sources
of coral reef destruction, rejecting
coral gardening is like denying
the usefulness of a bandage in
protecting a wound while it
heals, or cancer surgery while
we lack a cure for the disease.
We need to save what we can of
reef functioning in the hope that
true solutions will come in time.Did space-time not exist
until we came along?
5 February, p 38
From Ton Smit,
Utrecht, The Netherlands
I can imagine that we humans
influence space-time, but not
that we create it, as you suggest in
your new perspective on quantum
reality. Who created space-time
when humanity didn’t exist?I always had difficulty with
Schrödinger’s cat. For me, it is
clear that the cat is either dead or
alive. You just don’t know which
one it is. I don’t grasp how not
knowing something could create
space-time realities. When I ask
my friend to choose a number
between 1 and 10 and he does
that, but doesn’t reveal his choice,
then I don’t believe that he is in a
superposition of 10 states in space-
time. I just don’t know his choice.
Or are space-time realities only
created on a subatomic level?A form of heating that
could help the world
19 February, p 20
From Rob Saunders,
Cranbrook, Kent, UK
Adam Vaughan’s excellent review
of ways of removing greenhouse
gases from the air didn’t mention
biochar production, which could
be deployed at scale.
Pyrolysing (heating at high
temperatures) organic materials
under anaerobic conditions
creates charcoal, which is called
biochar when pulverised to gravel
or dust-sized pieces and used as a
soil additive. Carbon compounds
in biochar are dominated by
fused aromatic ring structures
that are intrinsically resistant
to biodegradation and are thus
stable for climatically useful
timescales as a means of
carbon sequestration.
Biochar is thought to enhance
soils as a result of micro and
nanostructures on the surface of
the particles, providing microsites
for soil bacteria and mineral
exchange. The net effects on soils
are generally positive, improving
texture and nutrient availability.
A range of feedstocks could be
used, such as waste wood, forestry
thinnings, miscanthus grassesand dry crop residues. Biochar
offers a low-tech route to carbon
removal that has minimal risk
of subsequent leakage.A reason to round on
the circular economy
12 February, p 38
From Geoff Russell,
Adelaide, South Australia
To paraphrase the journalist
H. L. Mencken, “for every
complex problem there is an
answer that is clear, simple, and
wrong”. So it is for materials and
the circular economy.
Consider two options.
Produce 350,000 tonnes of
very sophisticated materials,
fabricate them into solar panels,
then mount on metal supports,
perhaps with concrete
footings. This will cover some
10,000 hectares of what could
otherwise be wildlife habitat. It
will produce little or no energy
70 to 90 per cent of the time.
In a circular economy,
you would then collect all
350,000 tonnes (plus frames)
every 25 years or so and take it back
on trucks to factories to reprocess
it at an enormous energy cost.
The alternative (non-circular)
solution is to mine 200 tonnes
of uranium annually and use it
as fuel in fission reactors (plus
a few thousand tonnes of metals
to make the pressure vessel and
generators). The reactors will last
80 years or more before they also
can be (mostly) recycled. That isn’t
circular, but degrades very little
land and has a tiny material flow
by comparison.From Richard Brown,
Huntly, Aberdeenshire, UK
I read again that 30 per cent of
food is wasted. It is high time to
bring back the pig to its rightfulrole of converting food waste
into edible protein and fat. I know
that the veterinary profession, of
which I am a part, has been against
swill feeding for decades, but this
must change and the government
needs to set a framework so that
pigs fed food waste are prioritised
over modern intensive farming.
This will cause large changes in the
genetics and management of pigs.Happiness is comfort or
an inverse relationship
22 January, p 38
From Ken Jensen,
Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada
A particular nuance of
happiness has been overlooked.
In her novel A Closed Eye, Anita
Brookner touches on it when
one of her characters reflects thus:
“Happiness was what young people
wanted; at his age he knew that
comfort was more important.”From David Strachan,
Llanbister, Powys, UK
After your look at happiness and
the letters on it, I have found the
formula for the elixir of happiness:
Happiness = 1/unhappiness.The real crisis is the
number of people
Leader, 12 February
From Murray Upton,
Canberra, Australia
The state of Earth in 2022 is
indeed in crisis, but tinkering
with the economy isn’t the
answer. The elephant in the room
that few people dare to mention
publicly is overpopulation of the
planet. This silence must change.From Denis Watkins,
Truro, Cornwall, UK
Geoff Harding (Letters,
19 February) fears for fertility in our
polluted world. As a species, we
seem incapable of restricting our
encroachment on, and destruction
of, all parts of the planet. Human
sperm counts too low for fertility
may be the best hope for a world
that continues to be fit to live in. ❚Want to get in touch?
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